Tales From the Houses
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: A series of drabbles based on the chapter "The Steward and the King." COMPLETE
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** No I don't own it.

**One **

She is lonely.

She spends her days in darkness, wishing for things that cannot be.

The ladies tell her naught and do not allow her the simple freedom of rising from her sick bed. She is trapped by a broken arm and physical weakness as much as she is by the four walls that encase her.

She is left alone for hours with nothing but her thoughts and desire for war and need to run and breath, peering out a window that does not look east.

All around her is death and misery and despair and she does little to stop it from devouring her whole.


	2. Meeting

**Two **

He walks the gardens alone.

The sun is warmupon his flesh but it does little to ease his mind. The Shadow grows in the east, a terrible fate taunting those in the city even as their lords ride out to meet it.

So lost in his thoughts is he that he does not hear others approach. The Warden presents to him a lady, beautiful and poignant, the Shieldmaiden he has only heard whispers of.

She asks for freedom he cannot grant for he has none himself. There is something inside of her that longs to find peace andit captures his attention.

So he grants her freedom from her room and gives her leave to walk the gardens.

He asks for her company in exchange for a window that looks eastward.

She does not deny him.


	3. Company

**Three **

He asks for information on the sad maiden but learns naught from the Warden. So he calls to him a Halfling, not unlike those he has met, and learns more than the hobbit tells.

She has a sad tale, the lady, chained down by duty and gender and love not returned.

He spends his night thinking of her, golden strands replacing phantom flames that flicker in his dreams. And when he sees her in the morning light, clad in white his heart is filled with peace unknown before.

They waste away the hours together, in silence and in speech, content with the others companybut still restless, minds often straying to the forsaken lands.

One day as they stand on the walls he tells her that she had done her part in the war.

She turns to him and whispers that she knows.


	4. Wonderings

**Four **

She sits in her new room looking out, thinking not of her brother or the ranger who will be king but of the stranger with whom she wanders the gardens.

He faces flushes and her hand grips the windowsill as she thinks of what will become of her should the war be won even though the thought seems farfetched.

Will she return to Rohan at her brother's side and beg forgiveness for abandoning her people? Will she be locked away in some tall tower or secret chamber in fear of being damaged? Shall she be cast away to the highest bidder from some far off land in hopes of bringing peace to her country?

And what of her companion?

He knows the touch of war and the taste of loss. He has seen the Darkness of the Shadow and lived to tell the tale.

He is alone, the last of his house. He will be Steward.

She thinks of him, with bright, farseeing eyes. Her heart leaps beneath her breast and her breath catches.

She turns away from the window and waits for her doom.


	5. Rediscovered

**Five **

One evening he asks that a chest be brought to him from his private chambers. Once it is delivered he asks to be alone before delving into it. A tattered book of lore, seashells from a long passed trip, dried flowers that fill the room with their heavy scent, masking the bitter smell of the room, which has witnesses too much death.

Finally his fingers brush the soft folds of midsummer's night blue that is fitted with stars the do not fade come dawn. His thoughts turn to one who he barely remember, save for grey eyes that longed for the sea.

Slowly his thoughts become of the Shieldmaiden, with her sorrowful loveliness and wishes for freedom that is ever just beyond her reach. He wonders how long they must wait and how long he can keep her at his side.

Casting his eyes to the black red clouds that, with malice, hide the sky from his eyes he decides that he prefers the sky that is created by the mantle in his hands.


	6. Reborn

**Six**

They walk the walls and wait for some stroke of doom even as the northward wind carries away their words.

The day is dreary and grey and the hope that burns in his heart is a sharp contrast to the fear he sees so clearly in hers.

She is a lovely sight to his tired eyes, with the stars around her shoulders and her hair like a golden crown upon her head. A queen.

And she calls him friend as he tells her of his heart's desire and knows of what he speaks but not wanting to understand. She is grave and kind like the first shower of spring.

And when the world falls silent all around them and not even their heart beats beneath their breast, their hands clasp unknowingly and the fate of the world decided.

An Eagle flies, bearer of great tidings on the strong winds that no one longs whisper of their doom.

He speaks to her of Numenor and of hope for the new age, which was born from the silence as he leans down to kiss her worried brow.

And she smiles at him softly though her fate is still unknown.


	7. Abandoned

**Seven**

The following morning she rises with the sun, which is bright and unveiled for the first time in her life. It is blinding and hurts her eyes, forcing her to look down at the stone floor beneath her feet. The light warms her, surpassing her flesh and putting life into her very blood. The air is sweet and the world relieved, a huge weight having been removed, as the Great Eye no longer glares from his high tower.

She walks outside, the fresh air clearing her mind and lightening her heart. Perhaps, she thinks, her life will not be so terrible in this new age and, as the Steward strays into her eyesight, so lonely as she once thought.

He comes to her and tells her softly that he has been given leave of the Houses. He must go and take up the title of Steward and make ready the city.

In that moment her pride falters. " You have your freedom now, my lord. Will you not grant me my own?"

"Nay Eowyn for my eyes see you wounded still."

Her heart hardens at his words and she hears not but the blood in her ears as she bids him farewell.

Stricken he looks as he bows his head and kisses her hand and she sees herself in days not yet lived, hollow, a cold creature alone in the dark.

But still she cannot bring herself to ask him to stay.


	8. Rain

**Eight **

His first night out of the houses it rains.

It is a cleansing rain, meant to wash away the scars left by an age of war and he wonders if it will clean away his own scars as well.

His gaze falls on the mountains of the east, which no longer cast their dark webs on his city. His heart quickens at the thought.

The Shadow has departed, and for the first time in all his years it is truly _his_ city.

He wears on his finger a ring never meant to be worn by him; he holds an office he was never intended to take. He has no place here, in command of the White City, if only for a short time. This place where his father's ghost lingers and thoughts of his brother, lost to the river's flow, ever take his mind.

The king will return, and the White Tree bloom again, he has no place in that either, for will be no need for a Steward. Perhaps, after he has shed his title, he will return to Ithilien where his heart is not as heavy as it is locked away inside the cold marble of _the_ city.

He thinks of the Lady he left in the houses, of her sadness wonders if his place was by her side. Perhaps, if she'd willed it, his return across the river would not be so lonely an affair.

Lighting splits the clouds, illuminating the world for a single second before he turns from the window knowing the rain would not heal his hurts.


	9. Fallen

**Nine **

She walks the walls, her eyes straying more often to the city behind her where he now dwells than the plains.

She is alone again, a forsaken creature left behind from an age of darkness and despair. She does not belong in this New Age, forged from the silence, does not wish to live a life in which she must wait and watch from the shadows, hoping that the light might find her again yet not truly believing that it will.

The young hobbit keeps her company from to time, though she suspects it has more to do with pity than want. When summons come from Cair Andros he takes his leave of her for she has no wish to celebrate, or see the king, or leave the city.

Everyday she wakes with a heavy heart and the sun burns her and she sickens of it. For the first time since she woke her sickness returns with a vengeance. She is weak and finds herself both frustrated and troubled.

One day he returns to her and they walk the gardens again and talk as they had done in the past. Her heart is light as it has not been in too long a time.

But he leaves her as the sunsets and she is left alone in the dark.


	10. Thoughts

**Ten **

He sits in his office and wonders why she tarries.

Her brother calls for her, summons her beyond Cair Andros and yet she lingers in the Houses, the same houses she had begged him leave from.

He pictures her in his mind, a blooming lily, wilting in its prime. Skin sickly pale, grey eyes haunted, golden hair limp and lusterless.

She is fading.

He knows in his heart she will not last long. And he will lose her, a precious thing that was never truly his.

He wonders that the king called her back from the Darkness but left her incomplete.

She is a sad thing, moved from one cage to another, being broken by her own despair every day.

And if he were to free her? Give her leave and bid her farewell…He sees her like a wild bird, freed from its cage only to fall prey to the wilderness outside. ' My eyes see you wounded still.'

Yet he could lie for her, declare her healed, and watch her go. To look upon the king with longing from afar, to be imprisoned by her own kin…to die?

His thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door.

The Warden calls for him.

Perhaps he was pondered too long.


	11. Epilogue:Peace

**Eleven **

They walk the walls again.

They walk in silence looking outward, he looks for the coming of the Company, she looks at him. Raven hair and clear grey eyes that shine with the light of the stars. She has missed his company, missed him, since his departure but she cannot bring herself to tell him, for too comfortable is she in their silence.

Indeed it is he who breaks the silence and her peace.

'Eowyn, why do you tarry here, and not go to the rejoicing in Cormallen beyond Cair Andros, where your brother awaits you?'

She can give him no answer and so he makes his own, ever close to the truth in her heart.

His words pity her, though his eyes do not, for she is too high and valiant a lady to be pitied, by him or any other. So she tells him a shadowed truth, for she cannot bring herself to speak her new found secret aloud yet.

'You are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond the words of an Elven-tongue to tell. And I love you.' The words hang between them.

Her mind wills him to stop, bids him to leave her again, abandon her the sullen creature with no hope. But her heart calls to him, and listens to his words, his promises, those he speaks aloud and those only his eyes tell her.

He loves her, has hope for her still and so her choice is made.

She will stay with him and keep a garden and love and grow and tarry in the Shadow no more.

And she asks him if he will take his proud people's scorn for his love of her, a daughter of the North, an unruly thing that will not be broken, not by shame or love alike.

"I would."

And so he takes her in his arms and kisses her freely. And she sees her future once more and she does not fear it, for it is a dark and sullen thing no more.

For she is with him.

She is loved.

She is happy.

**THE END**

**Many thanks to all who reviewed this story. I hope you enjoyed. **

**Happy Holidays.**


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